A bit late to give my opinion on this FTD release, but because of some mixing up this book/ CD arrived in my mailbox only last week.
Design
There is not much to say about the design itself. It’s a collage of pictures, and overall it has been done with taste. The printing quality and the quality of the pictures is something else, both are VERY poor. There are a lot of speckles in the dark parts of the pages, being it in the pictures themselves or the background color of the pages (often the brownish color that is also on the front cover). The book features more than 200 photos, according to the back cover. I am not exaggerating when I say that more than 150 of them were not worth being featured, either because they’re blurry, enlarged too much (and thus very grainy) or just screwed up with Photoshop (or a program alike).
Content
The book focuses on Elvis’ gigs in Los Angeles over the years; a couple of pictures from the 50s a few of the 1970 shows and some of 1976. The main part of the book (nearly 70 pages of the 130+) has pictures of the show that is on the CD too: the evening show of May 11, 1974 in the Inglewood Forum. At least this book teaches me that Elvis switched suits during this show: he apparently wore the Aloha suit too, according to page 34. I guess this shows how sloppy some things are done…
The show is, not surprisingly, a lot like those of the March tour (yes, among them the Memphis one). The set list hardly changed. There is one big difference: Elvis was much more energetic during those days in March. What’s left is a listenable show, but nothing special, it sounds like our man is on automatic pilot. The sound is okay too, although there are many better sounding soundboards. The highlight of the CD should be the audience recording of “You Can Have Her” and as a matter of fact it is. Unfortunately the quality has not really improved compared to what I knew already.
Conclusion
To me it can be only one: I should have skipped it. Sloppy pictures, sloppy printing and a so-so show are certainly not worth 60 Euros (or even more if you buy it at the wrong place).